Where in Seattle is Ugueth Urbina?

So much to say about the baseball I saw in Seattle. Verlander, PERFECT through four, then disaster! Edwin Jackson ascendant! The bullpen!(!!) Miguel Cabrera’s hardest-hit singles imaginable! Jim Leyland’s reactions to pregame ceremonies! So VERY many hundreds of actual baseball photos, to come, erm, eventually.

But first, this.

Where in Seattle is Ugueth Urbina? the continued photo journeys of a very special former Tiger.

Where is Ugie? We join our intrepid hero somewhere in the air between Boston and Seattle, on an Alaska Airlines plane. Did you know that Alaska Airlines gives you a psalm with your food? Yeah. ‘Cause they do. And Ugie is all over that.

His first stop is the Seattle Aquarium! Delicious fishes! Not pictured: Dave Dombrowski out for a morning jog as we walked from our hotel to the Aquarium at 9:30 in the morning, surprising the hell out of me and Ugie both. Pictured: Ugie and a blue tang.

Stop menacing that river otter, Ugie! It will fight back using its powers of Adorableness, and that’s the type of fight that can get MEAN.

Next he heads to the Pike Place Market, in search of fresh local produce to fuel his rages.

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Rachel the bronze pig is sort of the mascot of the Pike Place Market. Here Ugie attempts to make friends with the porcine dame, but she remains staunchly unimpressed.

The Pike Place gum wall. Ugie really did not care for or about the gum wall, but it reminded me of the glorious Ann Arbor gum wall, so I forced him to take a shot with it. Blogger’s rules, you know.

Now THIS was more to Ugie’s liking! Mac and cheese at Beecher’s, which may look unassuming but is pretty much gustatory perfection rendered in cheesy noodle form. Thumbs up from me and my dad and Ugie. That’s six thumbs, kids. That’s good cheese.

As per usual, Ugie demands that we find a high vantage point so that he may survey the city and better plan his nefarious rampages and misdeeds. When you’re in Seattle, of course, there’s a rather obvious high vantage point available…

Viewing the city from atop the Space Needle, plottin’ away. I apologize for the fact that you can see more of my hand than you can of Ugie, but the winds up there were strong, and I don’t think any of his plots involved being carried off from 520 feet up.

Back down on the ground, Ugie makes his way over to the Experience Music Project. It’s kind of hard to tell here, but he’s in front of a giant tower of guitars.

Ugie thought the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame would be too geeky, but that was before he realized he would find people there who would be willing and able to aid him in his schemes! If the thought of Ugie teaming up with Gort doesn’t fill your heart with The Fear, you are not thinking it through properly.

Poor Ugie; first he’s subjected to geekery, now he’s subjected to art. Here he debates the artistic merits of a Richard Serra sculpture in the Olympic Sculpture Park.

And here’s his take on a large piece by Alexander Calder. Judging from the expression on his face, I don’t think he’s diggin’ it…

But that’s OK, because finally he makes it into Safeco Field, home of the Mariners! Also garlic fries! Also Justin Verlander freakouts, but we’ll save that for later. Let’s just say that Ugie was not pleased.

It was Ichiro bobblehead night at the ballpark, so Ugie did end up getting a new friend in Seattle, even after Rachel rejected him.

Ugie schmoozes with a tiger at the Woodland Park Zoo. He wanted to schmooze with the live tigers, but they were, true to feline form, sleeping. Maybe this is why Ugie was never destined to work out with the Tigers. He just doesn’t understand the importance of napping 17 or 18 hours a day.

No Ugie in this shot, but this is a troupial, which is the national bird of Venezuela. So it’s sort of a Ugie-flavored shot, if you will.

Heading back downtown Ugie stops in at the Seattle Art Museum, where his love of chaos and disorder is pleased by the exploding cars artwork.

And he’s back at Safeco, posing by the gates this time. I don’t know how the gate attendants let such a clearly unhinged character into the ballpark not just once, but two nights in a row.

That’s about it for Ugie. He’s having breakfast at Sea-Tac International Airport here, having packed as much as he humanly (cartoonly) can into two full days and two travel days.

But wait! One last shot of Ugie, flying over what I guess are probably the Cascade Mountains, on his way out of Washington.

What a trip! And, like I said, there will be plenty of actual baseball photos, as soon as I can get around to processing and posting them. But I thought I should get Ugie’s trip up as quickly as I could, because he would want you all to know what he’s been up to lately.

Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha haaaaaaaa. I love Ugie’s adventures. I also like that almost everyone holds him by his crotch because I’m ten years old.
Tangentially related: my mom is going to San Fran next week and she had this idea of taking along the Precious Moments figurine my grandmother got her for her grad school graduation last winter (yeah . . . I got one too) and doing basically the same thing with it. It’s got a lifetime warranty too, so if she drops it off the Golden Gate bridge she can just get a new one, oh joy. I’m going to try and get her to take my Granderson bobblehead too just to give her trip some Tiger-y flavor.

You know, I love the Ugie Urbina travelogues. Somewhere, I have a photo from when I was in Pittsburgh and the Phillies were in town… And some Phillies phan had an Urbina jersey on. I asked him about it, he said “it was on the clearance rack at Modell’s for $8. Can’t pass up a bargain like that.” And I simply tipped my cap to such impeccable logic.
If only Ugie had had some calming cheesy noodley goodness that fateful day back home in Venezuela…

Paul M, yes, the wins certainly did help soothe the pain of that Verlander outing. At least a little bit. A teensy tiny bit.Matt, then you and Ugie could be BFF, clearly!ivantopumpyouup, yeah, his crotch is kind of the central axis, so it’s the most obvious place to hold him so that most of him is still visible for a photo. Poor planning on my part. :PJeff, I often think of situations where I was stressed, or rageful, and wouldn’t cheesy goodness have helped at the time? The answer is almost always yes.David, yes! Glass is totally on the agenda for future trips, we just didn’t have enough time on this one. But I am all about the glass art. Pilchuck School! Toots Zynsky! Petr Hora! Whut whut! (it’s all my grandmother’s fault)Heitk1le, I was so totally unprepared to see Dave Dombrowski first thing in the morning, I did not have the camera at the ready. He just caught us completely off guard. HOWEVER I was alert enough to note his shirt– it was a plain tshirt under a jacket, no stripes that I could see. I think he saves those for warmer climes.